X-Plane manual

Intro to Plane-Maker

About Plane-Maker:

X-Plane comes with a handful of airplanes ranging from the Cessna 172 to the Space Shuttle.

That should be enough to keep you busy for a while.

In the event it is not, you can use Plane-Maker to design your own airplanes. You will enter the DIMENSIONS of your aircraft in Plane-Maker, and X-Plane will then try to figure out how your airplane will fly.

This is totally different from every single other flight simulator in the entire world, in which you tell the simulator how the airplane will fly, and it spits the results right back out at you, thereby teaching you absolutely nothing.

Once you have designed your airplane in Plane-Maker, you can save it to your hard disk (anywhere in the X-System folder will do) and then take it flying in X-Plane. You can also upload your planes to the internet, download other people's planes, etc etc etc.

In this chapter we will walk through the aircraft design-entry process.
For engineers, this should be easy. For pilots not as well versed in the fundamentals of aircraft design, fear not! We will explain things for all audiences as we go.

(see the "Plane-Maker Instructions.txt" file with the copy of X-Plane for the latest info!)
Terminology:

You will have to enter the locations of various parts of the aircraft (of course), so the first thing you should do is pick a reference point (such as the top center of the firewall, for example, or the back of the spinner) to take all of you measurements from.

Plane-Maker will ask for the following dimensions for each part:

"longitudinal arm" (abbreviated "long arm"), which is the distance the item is behind the reference point (use negative numbers for items forward of the reference point).

"vertical arm" (abbreviated "vert arm"), which is how far the item is above the reference point (use negative numbers for items below the reference point).

"lateral arm" (abbreviated "lat arm"), which is how far the item is to either side of the reference point. (All aircraft are assumed to be symmetrical, so most lateral arms are positive, indicating simply the distance from the fuselage centerline. In other cases, the lateral arm is positive-right. You will be able to figure out which convention to use based on the situation).

Again, you may use any reference point you wish, just be sure to use the same reference point for all of the items on each aircraft design!

OK let's go. We will go through every function of Plane-Maker now:

1: Launch "Plane-Maker".
2: Go to the "File" menu and select "Open",
3: Select an airplane, like the Mooney in the "General Aviation" folder, that you wish to modify. (Don't worry, none of the changes you make will be saved unless you decide to save in the "File" menu.. and even then you can save under a different filename and thereby not mess up your Mooney!)

As we go through this tour, change any of the design data you want to customize the airplane that you just opened. You then can fly the modified design when you are done.

You can save all the aircraft design you like on your hard disk, naming them anything you like, and open them up later in X-Plane just like word-processor files!

(next section)

About Plane-Maker: X-Plane comes with a handful of airplanes ranging from the Cessna 172 to the Space Shuttle. That should be enough to keep you busy for a while. In the event it is not, you can use Plane-Maker to design your own airplanes. You will enter the DIMENSIONS of your aircraft in Plane-Maker, and X-Plane will then try to figure out how your airplane will fly. This is totally different from every single other flight simulator in the entire world, in which you tell the simulator how the airplane will fly, and it spits the results right back out at you, thereby teaching you absolutely nothing. Once you have designed your airplane in Plane-Maker, you can save it to your hard disk (anywhere in the X-System folder will do) and then take it flying in X-Plane. You can also upload your planes to the internet, download other people's planes, etc etc etc. In this chapter we will walk through the aircraft design-entry process. For engineers, this should be easy. For pilots not as well versed in the fundamentals of aircraft design, fear not! We will explain things for all audiences as we go. (see the "Plane-Maker Instructions.txt" file with the copy of X-Plane for the latest info!)				Terminology: You will have to enter the locations of various parts of the aircraft (of course), so the first thing you should do is pick a reference point (such as the top center of the firewall, for example, or the back of the spinner) to take all of you measurements from. Plane-Maker will ask for the following dimensions for each part: "longitudinal arm" (abbreviated "long arm"), which is the distance the item is behind the reference point (use negative numbers for items forward of the reference point). "vertical arm" (abbreviated "vert arm"), which is how far the item is above the reference point (use negative numbers for items below the reference point). "lateral arm" (abbreviated "lat arm"), which is how far the item is to either side of the reference point. (All aircraft are assumed to be symmetrical, so most lateral arms are positive, indicating simply the distance from the fuselage centerline. In other cases, the lateral arm is positive-right. You will be able to figure out which convention to use based on the situation). Again, you may use any reference point you wish, just be sure to use the same reference point for all of the items on each aircraft design!




OK let's go. We will go through every function of Plane-Maker now: 1: Launch "Plane-Maker". 2: Go to the "File" menu and select "Open", 3: Select an airplane, like the Mooney in the "General Aviation" folder, that you wish to modify. (Don't worry, none of the changes you make will be saved unless you decide to save in the "File" menu.. and even then you can save under a different filename and thereby not mess up your Mooney!) As we go through this tour, change any of the design data you want to customize the airplane that you just opened. You then can fly the modified design when you are done. You can save all the aircraft design you like on your hard disk, naming them anything you like, and open them up later in X-Plane just like word-processor files!